


animal

by itsgoodtobeking



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: M/M, Monsters, Vampirism, edward is a friend not food, graphic feeding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 16:36:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21323299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsgoodtobeking/pseuds/itsgoodtobeking
Summary: Oswald never asked for this.[A collection of short AU mini-fics adapted from roleplays offering a glimpse of Oswald navigating life as a vampire in Gotham. I have a embarrassing amount of lore for Vamp!Wald so this may see more updates.]
Relationships: Nygmobblepot - Relationship, Oswald Cobblepot & Edward Nygma, Oswald Cobblepot/Edward Nygma
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44





	1. Chapter 1

Only the dead sleep in boxes, he tells himself. 

Well, them and a few unruly Arkham inmates, probably; Oswald doesn't doubt the possibility of such a draconian punishment existing. 

But he is neither of these things, and a man of his wealth and stature deserves better.

Which is why he has desperately tried everything he could for a restful sleep short of packing his ears and nostrils with cottonballs: sleeping with Ed's headphones on; burying himself under pillows and blankets; denying himself sleep for days until too exhausted to care about anything but dropping into bed; and, finally, knocking himself out with hard booze and sleeping pills. But falling asleep isn't the problem; it's staying down that is, in the small hours of the morning, when noises and smells creep into his awareness until he's wide awake again, a raw, twitchy bundle of nerves, the bones in his face grinding as they shift like tectonic plates to make room for too many jagged teeth.

Nothing escapes him. Oswald can hear every creak and groan of the manor as it shifts; the maddening clickitty-clack of Ed's fingers pecking away at the keyboard. He can smell the heady scent of Ed under soap and toothpaste and hand lotion. Warm. Earthy. Spicy-sweet. 

Too tempting for its own good.

It's six in the morning when Oswald gives up on another night of sleep and follows a bitter whiff of coffee into the dining room, absently tugging his robe a little tighter across his chest as he limps in. The table's been set and breakfast laid out, as he's asked of Olga, for Ed's benefit. So many foods Oswald still had a taste for, so many his body couldn't hold down for long. 

Ed looks up at him, laying his pen over a half-finished crossword puzzle. "Good morning, Oswald." He greets him, _slappably_ chipper. "I was just getting to your schedules."

Oswald ignores him and hunches into his chair, reaching to pour himself some bland tea just to have something hot in his belly. He's not so delusional to think that it'd do anything to tide him over, of course.

"You are a busy man, Ed; no one is debating that." Oswald says, finally. "But at this point I have to wonder what is so desperately important on your laptop every night that it demands your attention until half past three in the morning."

He's starting to believe that Ed can't possibly be human at this point; no ordinary man can be awake and fully functional on coffee and a few hours of rest. Did Ed even sleep?

Ed swallows a gulp of coffee, daring to smirk at him like nothing is wrong. "Someone was wrong on the internet."


	2. Chapter 2

Edward Nygma wants to stay.

Of course he does; he's brought dinner and had Gabe lay it out over the table - a still-living body drenched in drugs. It's not the first time he's asked, either. And Ed does have a point, as reluctant as Oswald is to admit it. It's by watching him feed from closer up that can Ed learn more about him, can better understand his condition and make headway with a cure.

But it's also dangerous, being this starved with Ed standing right beside him. Ed, with his eager, curious smile. Because the animal inside him doesn't see friendship, or loyalty, or trust; just a throat begging to be opened.

So there is no reaching a compromise today - and Oswald shoots Ed a look until he has stepped away and disappeared, out of sight but not out of mind. Ed is just behind the door, his scent forever giving him away. Easy prey. Still, the body on the table is even easier and Oswald can't help it, his pupils are already slitting, the angles of his face sharpening as the vampire thrashes to the surface.

He slides off his robe and stepping towards it in his undershirt and sweatpants, the only things he doesn't mind getting blood on. Things he wouldn't be caught dead (ha!) wearing anywhere else.

Leaning over the man, Oswald wrenches the shirt collar aside and buries his nose into his skin, eyes slipping into the back of his skull as he breathes in the smell of him, tang of sweat and chemicals and syrupy blood, his head swimmy with all of it. He shakes, every cell in his body hurting like nothing has ever hurt, and he can't stand it anymore, he _can't_, his jaws opening impossibly wide and clamping down on that neck. So many crooked, sharkish teeth punching into meat and shearing vessels. Blood gushes into his mouth faster than he can swallow it, running down his chin, hot and rich and sweet. Liquid-fucking-gold. He's hit with a relief so pure, so overwhelming, his throat aches and he can feel tears burn his eyes. In this moment, it's better than having Gotham, having Ed. In this moment, there is nothing else.

The man's eyes fly open, darting around for a mental foothold. Panicking, he heaves against the clawed hands holding him down, against the animal-jaws working furiously against his neck, forcing its fangs in deeper. The man screams, screams until the world goes dark and he can't anymore, cut off by a wet crunch of his windpipe.

He's dead long before Oswald has peeled himself away from his neck and gouged his fingers into his chest, flaying flesh and cracking open ribs, cutting himself on broken bones as he tunnels away. The heart itself rips away easy. Oswald cradles the still-warm, slimy thing in his hands, his eyes fixed, glazed over. A short-lived show of reverence before he sinks his teeth in, hollowing his cheeks and drinking until it's as crepey-dry as the rest of the corpse. The spleen is last, an easy treat. But soon, too soon, he has emptied it too and tossed it to the rug, blissed out and jittery with adrenaline when he moves to lean against the table and closes his eyes, waiting for his head to clear. Waiting for the next moment to come, when Ed knocks and Oswald remembers, like he always does, that he has never liked this, the smell of death sticking to his breath and his skin and his clothes. Never liked the way Ed looks at him, at the shreds of human meat caught between his teeth and the blood smearing his panting mouth, and smiles like everything is just the way it should be; smiles like it's the monster he's falling for.


	3. Chapter 3

Aspirin doesn't work anymore. 

Hasn't for a long time. 

It goes down and comes up just like any other solid thing, the effort of heaving up undigested clumps of _anything_ taking more out of him than it should. But Oswald is desperate enough to keep trying, shaking out half the bottle and shoving a handful of pills into his mouth. Even crushing and drinking down the contents can't help. He twists awake every night anyway, grinding his face into the walls and clawing at them, clawing at his own back, limping in and out of the manor. He's used to living with aches and pains, with his ruined leg. But this is a different sort of pain, one that sharpens after sundown and nothing seems to touch. 

He barely survives his stay at an evening ball for Gotham's elite at the end of the week, spending most of it nursing a flat-tasting glass of wine and doing his best to smile while his hand trembles, to wave away the guests who seem to sense the sickness radiating from him. It's nothing, he tells them. Just recovering from a cold. Most of them seem to buy the explanation, even as he ducks outside more than a handful of times to escape the haze of perfume and cologne and blood, dabbing away the red sweat pearling at his temples. Within an hour he's already shaking hands and politely excusing himself for the night before those unconvinced can question him, can drown him in their scent.

* * *

Barely two steps into the mansion, Oswald tears his itching cravat from his throat and throws off his tailcoat, his vest, staggering down the dark of the hallway. His mouth is dripping with dog's blood. No heady rush of endorphins or seratonin from it, nothing to ease the restlessness under his skin. 

He shoots a look towards the nearest mirror, panting. There's a disembodied set of clothes there, an invisible man doubled over. Nothing he hasn't seen before. Until he notices his sweat-slick shirt tenting at his back, right where the muscles have been cramping up, where it feels like bones are stretching and grinding and trying to punch out of his skin. The shock of it runs him through. He reels back, wide-eyed, into a wall, hard enough to shake a painting from its hook. 

The frame shatters over the floor.

***

All the noise, of course, is nothing new for Edward. Oswald has his moods and a habit of slamming doors and stomping his feet making sure everyone around him knew about them. But curiosity wins out - it always does - and Ed sets aside his laptop and pads downstairs, wondering if he was just throwing a fit over having gone to the ball alone. This was Oswald, after all. 

What Ed sees in the hallway is a far cry from a temper tantrum. It's a look begging for help.

"...Oswald?" He tries.

"Stop--!" Oswald gasps out.

Ed stops. Watching, mesmerized, as pores pop open across every inch of Oswald's skin, tiny red pin-pricks of blood welling up into fat drops that leak into his eyes and out the corners and ooze out his ears and nose. Fascinating, in a fucked up sort of way.

"Oh dear..." Ed touches his fingers to the temple of his glasses. "What happened?"

Oswald stares at him, stares through him, stricken. He doesn't know what to tell him, can't find the words while the smell of him batters his senses, pressing him into a corner. And it's not fair, not fucking fair how delicious it is and how easy it'd be to rip into Ed's screaming throat. Not fair how badly it hurts not to, his body screaming with need. 

Ed raises his hands. "Oswald, listen to me--"

He's still trying to reach him. 

So careful, so patient, against his own better judgment. 

But when Oswald's eyes glaze over and a snarl twists his face into something so savagely ugly, something finally _clicks_ in Ed's mind -- and Ed is _gone_, stumbling backwards and up the stairs as the vampire lunges for him, teeth snapping like a steel trap.


	4. Chapter 4

Ed pants in the dark, pressed up against the wall of a bedroom-turned-warzone. His fingers tremble slightly around one temple of his glasses.

He _had_ to do it.

It's not his fault.

He takes a few long, deep breaths before straightening up. Before stumbling around toppled chairs and splintered chunks of wood and out into the hall where it's quiet, so much quieter than it should be, his pulse roaring in his ears.

Past a shattered vase in the hall is an open door leading to the bathroom. Leading to a body on the floor, so small and still, half-curled in a fetal position. It's staring at the wall, a look of blank shock frozen on its face. Pupils different sizes, different shapes, like it died shifting between man and animal. Only it isn't dead. It refuses to die.

Every now and again there's the slightest movement of its fingers or a twitch of its jaws while its fangs retract. The extra leg jutting from its back is half gone. Folding into itself with a rubbery squelch, a parasitic resolve. It doesn't have a say in it, in any of it. Its body does what it wants and all it can do is lie there and let it happen. 

Ed stands over it, swallowing hard as he stares at it. "...I wonder if you're in there yet."

Its flesh is still hissing around the pen lodged in its chest, already eaten down to the bone. It worked, the silver had worked, just like Oswald said it would. Though it's hard to see that same man in this creature, this _thing_ that can't blink, can't move, but knows he's there because its throat is bobbing and it makes a wheezy, broken noise, eyes suddenly jerking wetly in his direction.

Ed stumbles backwards, his heart pounding crazily. He watches the vampire for a long time until he can be sure that nothing else will happen.

Nothing does.

His lungs burn, and It's even longer before he lets out a breath knotted in his chest, one he hadn't realized he had been holding.

"...Yeah." Ed looks down at himself, at the blood darkening his pajamas, not thrilled to have to draw up his shredded pant legs and check how deeply Oswald's claws had gouged him. God bless adrenaline. "We need to have a talk about this whole vampire thing. ...If you survive, anyway."


End file.
